Overview

FogBugz typically creates cases from received emails. Additionally, cases are also produced from emails sent from website contact forms. This article provides information about the main challenges FogBugz administrators face when building contact forms:

1. Using/Keeping the sender's name as the case requester; and

2. Making the website forms adhere to specific standards to prevent getting the emails flagged as spam.

Prerequisites

Access to edit the contact form.

Information

In the past, every server connected to the web can send an email on behalf of a sender's email address. With the increase and flooding of spam emails, services like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and even smaller email providers have implemented countermeasures to prevent the abuse of unethical email marketing. These countermeasures block and limit the capacity of web servers to send emails on behalf of other domains.

One of the new rules in place for emails is that the servers can ONLY send emails from domains with the DNS > SPF setting that authorizes the webserver (which mails the form) to send emails on their behalf. Because of this rule, web services containing web forms (traditionally intended to send emails with collected info) are now bound to use a service account email address when customers submit web forms.

Challenges in Using Web Contact Forms

Keeping the sender's name as the case requester

Typically, users who have contact forms that collect customer data want the emails to be sent to a particular mailbox associated with their FogBugz account to create cases.

One of the main challenges in using web forms is that the emails (generated by the form) always come from the server that hosts the form. Since every email comes from the same address (associated with the sending server), all the cases will be created under the same person, which will be a service account (best case scenario).

Emails Flagged as Spam

In some cases, your server might be unauthorized to send emails on behalf of other domains. If you use the customer's email as the sender, email services (like Gmail, Hotmail, or Office 365) will mark every incoming email generated from your contact form as spam with the risk of blacklisting the server altogether. In turn, you will be forced to use a self-domain based email address to send all emails related to a contact form, which will result in losing the reference to the actual customer in the recipient field. 

Process

To build a successful website contact form:

1. Always use an email address that matches the domain server hosting your web form.

2. Use the reply-to value in the form's header, including the email of the customer.

Webmasters need to use the reply-to value in the form/header containing the customer's email. By using the reply-to value in your form/header, email servers (Gmail, Hotmail, Office 365, etc.) are informed that the emails are from your server and that replies must be sent to the alternative email provided. When FogBugz receives an email with this structure, it will use the reply-to value as the contact of the customer instead of your server's email address.

Validation

FogBugz should create cases from web contact form emails using the reply-to value as the requester.

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